The concentration of Martial Squires increased exponentially the closer they got to the Shionel Dungeon. There were many Martial Squires sky-walking at certain points that it became easier to travel through land!
"Unbelievable," Rui grinned as he felt tingling excitement from the visage before him.
The countless Martial Squires gathered in the town, the bustling markets dense with vibrant energy.
It was only natural that this would infect even the most lethargic of people. Even Kane grew more energetic once they entered the large town.
The outer ring of the town contained all of the markets and bazaars of all kinds. Many of the goods and services were catered to Martial Artists who were headed towards entering the dungeon, or towards those who had exited.
Rui didn't spare them a second glance. He already had everything he needed, the only thing they were looking for was an inn where they could reside in.
('We can look for that later,') Rui noted. ('For now, we can drop our luggage at the Adventurer's Guild in our inventory that comes with registering with the Guild.')
The Adventurer's Guild guaranteed protection and management of the personal belongings of the Martial Artists who chose to store them there, in exchange for a small fee.
They quickly headed over to the closest Adventurer's Guild office in the inner ring which was restricted only to Martial Artists, yet despite this, the rush in the office was remarkably high. It took another half an hour before they could finish their business and exit the Adventurer Guild.
"Ugh, that was tiring," Kane complained. "Now I just want to go back and sleep."
"We still have a dungeon to raid, can't have you dropping dead already my friend,"
"Ugh…" Kane stretched a bit before sighing. "Alright let's get going already."
"That's the spirit," Rui chuckled, half serious and half sarcastic.
Rui could feel dominant pressure originating from the very dungeon itself. It was no wonder that ordinary humans simply stood no chance of coming close to the dungeon without feeling a traumatic amount of fear and anguish from the Shionel Dungeon. Not only did the vegetation absorb the esoteric mine reserves to grow to form the dungeon and possessed an enormous amount of power that exerted pressure onto hapless humans, but the many monsters inside the dungeon also exerted a lot of pressure.
The air grew somber as Rui and Kane walked toward the elevated land with steeling expressions. The light-hearted mood from just a minute prior had all but gone, and the Martial Squires within this distance from the dungeon could feel that entering the dungeon was not a light decision to take.
They soon reached the final barricade that separated the dungeon from the inner ring of Adventurer Ring. Rui could sense that many Martial Squires of the Shionel Confederation military manned the barrier, alert and ready to intercept any monsters that escaped the dungeon.
Not all monsters peacefully remained in the transmuted environment of the Shionel Dungeon, there was a small proportion of monsters that emerged from the dungeon and migrated outwards. Part of the reason that Adventurer Ring town was created was to protect the rest of the Shionel Confederation from the outbreak of monsters.
The inner ring was filled with Martial Squires both of the Shionel Confederation and of other nations. This strong presence ensured that no monster could ever get past a certain point and start wreaking havoc on the rest of the nation.
Soon enough they crossed the final gate, and the elevated land of the dungeon was just some distance before them.
Rui could already feel his senses straining. All five of his senses, as well as Tempestuous Feel and Seismic Mapping, grew increasingly hampered the closer they walked toward the dungeon.
"So this is the sensory jamming trait of the Shionel Dungeon, hm?" Rui narrowed his eyes. "If it's this bad despite us not even having entered it yet, how bad will it be when we're actually inside?"
Thankfully, there was one sense of Rui that still functioned unperturbed. His Riemannian Echo allows him to detect the curvature of space and gravity generated by the Shionel Dungeon's external and internal shapes and layouts, allowing him to generate an image of the structure of the dungeon unproblematically.
At this point, Rui was truly grateful that he had taken the initiative to develop such an incredibly powerful and useful sensory technique. He couldn't imagine how enormously difficult it would have been trying to clear the dungeon without it.
"Damn…" Kane murmured, clearly discomforted by his increasingly hampered senses. "This is going to be rough."
"Ready?" Rui asked with a solemn tone.
"Is it too late to go to the bathroom?" Kane smiled wryly.
The elevated land had an immense number of cave entrances emerging from its walls, most of them had not been mapped or entirely explored, as it was extremely dangerous to simply jump into the caves. One could potentially run into an unexplored floor and be swarmed by an army of Squire-level monsters.
STEP
What they saw atop was a large cave that had been marked and gated.
"This is one of the known entrances to the first floor," Rui noted.
The Shionel Adventurer Guild had marked all the known tunnels that led to the shallowest floor which had been marked as floor number one. This allowed adventurers to be able to follow known routes to known floors where they could pool their power with other adventurers that had also followed the same route.
Although they would be competing with them for resources, they would also be in the presence of other Martial Artists, thus the chances of being overwhelmed by sheer numbers were far lower. It was a safer bet for most Martial Squires who were simply looking to go for exploring and plundering that had less risk to it.
"I don't necessarily have intentions of sticking to the known path though," Rui murmured. "Floor one has long been cleared and the Shionel Adventurer Guild has even occupied it to a certain degree so that discoveries of new floors can quickly be confirmed and routed."
